


Ever the twain shall meet

by writergenie



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: BUNCH OF AUS, F/F, F/M, Fate & Destiny, Force Dyad (Star Wars), Kira Ren - Freeform, M/M, Meant To Be, RFFA 2020, RFFA : To Rapture the Earth and the Seas, Rey Palpatine, Reylo Fanfiction Anthology, Senator Ben Solo, Smuggler Ben Solo, The Force bond is like gravity, To Rapture the Earth and the Seas, Tumblr:reylofanfictionanthology, always attracting and can't be escaped, possibilities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:20:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26701318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writergenie/pseuds/writergenie
Summary: After the disaster that was their meeting on the Supremacy, both Rey and Kylo Ren are left wondering why their force visions didn't come true.Kylo cannot help but wonder if there's anything left for him in this galaxy except death, destruction and loneliness while Rey is still running away from what she knows to be true... she's irrevocably bound to the one man who is both her salvation and the destroyer of everything she holds dear.With both of them wallowing in doubt and despair, the Force decides to give them a little nudge in the right direction and show them the truth. That they're meant to be - no matter when it is, no matter where and no matter who they are.
Relationships: Armitage Hux & Phasma & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Armitage Hux/Rose Tico, Bazine Netal/Phasma, Finn & Rey (Star Wars), Kylo Ren/Rey, Lando Calrissian & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Leia Organa/Han Solo, Luke Skywalker & Ben Solo, Poe Dameron & Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Sheev Palpatine & Rey
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16
Collections: To Rapture the Earth and the Seas: the 2020 Reylo Fanfiction Anthology





	1. Prologue

* * *

Black.

Red.

Smoke.

Heat.

A flash of light and the resulting wave of energy blasting them apart. 

In two very different locations across the galaxy, two young Force users jerked awake from their disturbed sleep at the same instant. Harsh, labored pants sounded in their respective chambers as both of them tried to leave behind the events of that fateful day.

Awake and asleep, memories of what had transpired on the Supremacy haunted Kylo and Rey. 

**_Kylo_ **

Even as he tried to adjust to the reality of having the First Order essentially under his command, Kylo still hadn’t come to terms with how the span of a day had upended his life. He had gone from servant to master, from a commander on a leash to the Supreme Leader, with just one stroke of his grandfather’s saber. But he had also gone from ally to friend to enemy over that very same lightsaber. 

Kylo Ren was now the Supreme Leader of the First Order and the Resistance was at its lowest. He had faced down his uncle and mentor the way he’d wanted to from the time he’d left Luke’s temple. But the one thing that he kept coming back to, the one enigma he kept trying to unravel, was Rey. 

She might be many things - a young woman, a survivor, the last Jedi now that Luke had become one with the Force, and a beacon of light to the Resistance. But to him, Rey was simply his other half in the Force.

And for the life of him, Kylo couldn’t understand what had happened. He’d thought that they both saw the same visions when their fingers had touched across the galaxy through their bond. Her coming to him, to the Supremacy so soon after their bond had cut out, had only strengthened his belief in his assumption. 

And after their fight against Snoke’s praetorian guards, he’d offered her exactly what he’d seen during his vision - the two of them standing side by side, ruling the galaxy and bringing balance to the Force.

But she’d rejected him. Not only had Rey refused to join him, she’d left him behind, unconscious and defenseless on a spaceship that was splintering apart. A ship filled with officers of the First Order, who wouldn’t think twice before putting a blaster bolt through his brain if they ever found what really happened in the throne room.

Even after all of this, Kylo couldn’t find it in himself to hate her. In fact, it surprised him quite a bit that while he felt hurt, disappointed with how things had turned out between them, and maybe a bit bewildered at the turn of events, the infamous Kylo Ren rage that used to engulf him like a suffocating blanket seemed to be entirely absent.

Whether that was due to having his mind to himself for the first time in his life or due to the fact that this was Rey, the woman he found himself incapable of considering an enemy, he didn’t know.

In fact, Rey was as far from his enemy as could be. Her blazing light constantly pulled at the tiny flicker that stubbornly remained lit in his dark and ravaged soul. She was the first person after Le- his mother, who made him want to be better. Kylo may have given up on saving his soul, on going home, but Rey seemed to stubbornly believe that he could. And without even being conscious of it, the Ben Solo living inside Kylo Ren had started to wish she was correct.

Rey had become his guiding light. The bond they shared was his gravity. 

It had kept him grounded when Snoke had torn through his mind time and time again in attempts to turn him into the mindless monster his erstwhile master had wanted to make him after the events of Starkiller base. And it was keeping Kylo sane now, even when Rey wasn’t by his side, had explicitly rejected his offer to rule the galaxy together and run off to save her so-called friends in the Resistance.

That the Force saw it fit to bond a creature like him to a shining light like Rey made Kylo want to believe that maybe, just maybe, all wasn’t lost after all. Maybe someday, if not in this life then the next, if not in this universe then in another, Ben Solo or Kylo Ren, no matter who he was, might find happiness and peace after all. 

**_Rey_ **

If Rey could be described in one word, it would be ‘survivor’. Sheer determination and a never-say-die attitude had helped her survive and get past every single test she’d faced in life. Until now. 

This problem she faced couldn’t be defeated by perseverance or determination and it left the young Jedi at odds with no idea how to proceed. 

Life on Jakku was difficult but not complicated. No matter what Rey had faced in life, she’d always been able to approach problems with a clear head. Her emotions had almost never interfered with what she needed to do to survive. Most problems in her life on Jakku had clear cut solutions. If you wanted to live, you had to learn to protect yourself and your hoard. Feelings and emotions didn’t enter the equation. 

So now, faced with the emotional maelstrom that Kylo Ren had ignited within her, Rey didn’t know what to do. Even as she wanted to hate him for putting her in a position of having to choose between him and the life of her friends, Rey also found herself wishing she could’ve taken his hand. 

What had happened when they touched hands on Ahch-To, how he’d slain his master, how for one exquisite moment, they’d danced as one, fighting back to back against Snoke’s elite guards… The images flashed before her tired eyes while she tried to work on the Falcon’s hyperdrive. The Force too seemed to have it out for her as Rey found it almost impossible to sleep without reliving that day once more in all its life-altering glory. 

She’d tried going without sleep but with almost everyone in the Resistance stuffed into the cramped quarters of the Falcon, it hadn’t gone unnoticed for even a day before she’d received well-meaning but ultimately useless advice from half of them. Having so many emotions was in itself new and complicated to the young Jedi but now, Rey had to navigate them without worrying or alarming her friends and the rest of the Resistance. That they’d started to regard her as some kind of legendary figure who could fix it all with the twirl of a now non-functional lightsaber piled on the pressure. 

While the bond still seemed to be present, it hadn’t been active, keeping her from close company with B- Kylo and that was her saving grace. 

Rey believed in the Resistance and saw first-hand how hard her friends worked just to survive another day. She had also seen just what sort of a monster Snoke had been and how much of a dictatorial regime the First Order was. Every righteous part of her screamed that she should be fully committed to the ideals of the Resistance and not even think about straying. After all, they had given her unstinting support, generous friendship and mentorship, and they’d taken her into their family and given her life more purpose than just survival. The First Order had done nothing but maim and destroy millions of innocent lives. Ideally as a Jedi, Rey should be fighting for justice and to bring about peace. As a survivor and a fighter, she should be battling the First Order in any way possible to help protect the lives of those who couldn’t defend themselves. 

But Rey knew her Ben Solo shaped blind spot was preventing her from being who she needed to be, who the Resistance needed her to be. The Force had connected her to Kylo Ren in a bond that even the precious Jedi texts she’d stolen from Ahch-To couldn’t seem to define. Without even having to confirm it, Rey knew that the bond, instead of disappearing after Snoke’s death, had strengthened every day. So had the confusion she felt about Kylo Ren.

The man who the galaxy knew as Snoke’s brutal Dark Side Force user and master of the Knights of Ren, she knew as the sad and lonely boy who had been preyed on since before birth by the dark. His fate had effectively been sealed since before young Ben Solo could do anything about it. But did that absolve him of all the crimes he’d committed or abetted as Kylo Ren? 

Rey didn’t know and as far as she could tell, neither did he. But Rey also knew that she was the only one who understood him even remotely and he was the only one who had any chance of understanding her. Understanding and accepting not just the cheerful Rey who tackled galactic wars like she did a faulty hyperdrive on the Falcon but also the Rey who had abandonment issues and feared opening herself up to anyone in case they left, the Rey who’d never outgrown her insecurities about food and shelter and the Rey who believed she still had to earn her place with the Resistance or they would leave her behind.

The two of them, equally broken and damaged by life, had been bound together by the Force for some reason. Maybe they could heal each other given a chance. Maybe together, they could make a difference in the war that was consuming the galaxy. Or maybe, this was all wishful thinking… Maybe the Ben Solo she’d gotten glimpses of was a figment of her imagination and Kylo Ren was all that was left. 

But then Rey remembered Leia saying that hope was like the sun… Maybe she was right to pin her hopes on the son. If Rey weathered the night, she would see the sun, and with the sun might come answers she desperately sought. 

A quick flash of images glimmered across her subconscious, making Rey smile for the first time in days. Different versions of Ben and Rey, all going through some version of their story.

But it was the last image in the series that had seared itself into her brain and made a permanent cherished place for itself in her heart. 

Wiping tears that had formed without her knowledge, Rey knew with an undeniable certainty that the visions she’d experienced just then were of the future… their future. Even if it wasn’t in this future or this universe, but somewhere, somehow, some version of Rey and Ben would get their chance. 

And that was enough. 


	2. AU 1 - Smuggler Ben and Rey

The Force is omnipresent, omniscient, and always has its own plan.

Benjamin Organa-Solo knew this from the time he could understand what the Force was. He’d always felt it. He couldn’t remember a time when the Force wasn’t surrounding him and his soul. It sometimes felt like a warm blanket, protecting him from everything. And at other times, the Force was an unemotional teacher.

Han and Leia Solo had tried their best to be good parents. But Han’s wanderlust and inability to toe the legal line and Leia’s dedication to leaving Vader’s legacy behind and being a figure of hope for the whole galaxy had overshadowed whatever parental instincts they’d possessed one time too many. And so, little Ben Solo had mostly grown up in the company of some nanny droids, with occasional visits from his Uncles Chewie and Lando.

Jedi Master Luke Skywalker opened a school for Force sensitive children after the war against the Empire was won. Ben didn’t really have a choice in whether he wanted to go to the Jedi Academy or not. Though he did want to be trained to harness the Force, nine year old Ben couldn’t see this move as anything more than his parents bundling their problem child off to someone who they thought could handle him better.

Needless to say, his sadness at being sent away, frustration at having no choice in his own future, and his innate strength in the Force, coupled with his emotional turbulence caused more than a few spectacular tantrums over the next few months. It didn’t help that Luke felt it necessary to be extra hard on his nephew lest someone accuse him of favoritism. At least that was what Ben assumed the reason had to be, until one evening a few months later.

Luke had been talking to someone over a holocall. Hearing his name, Ben quickly snuck into a recess in the wall nearby… and heartily regretted it when he heard what his uncle had to say.

“There’s too much Vader in him. I am afraid the Dark Side might win the battle for Ben’s soul.”

That night, with just six months of Jedi training under his belt and nothing but a practice saber at his hip, Benjamin Organa-Solo stole his uncle’s ship and made his way off planet before anyone even knew he was missing.

Unfortunately for his family, Ben didn’t leave any clues to where he was going except a message for his parents that left Leia sobbing and Han wallowing in guilt. Fortunately for Ben, the person he’d gone to after leaving the Academy took him in, no questions asked, and accepted his friend’s son as his own. Lando Calrissian may have been a gambler and a rogue, but there was no way he would turn away a too serious ten year old who seemed to carry the weight of the galaxy on his shoulders.

And so, Ben Solo’s life took a turn for the better. The Force still deigned to let him harness its powers as he could, but there were no absentee parents or judgmental uncles. Best of all, the dark cloud that had haunted his steps as long as he could remember receded enough for Ben to feel as if he was alive for the first time.

Lando got in touch with Han and Leia about Ben, but managed to keep them away for their own sakes. Han’s 'shoot first and ask questions later' attitude and Leia’s need to save everything and everyone from themselves were definitely not good parenting strategies, in Lando’s opinion. So for a few years Ben’s life settled into normalcy, or what passed for it on Bespin. 

He had been studying what he could of the Force, practicing his lightsaber forms, learning combat skills from Lando’s guards, enjoying the occasional visit from Uncle Chewie and later, assisting Lando with his less than legal affairs.

And then one day, the dreams started.

It was the same every time. An ocean, blue and grey with choppy waves, an island rising up in the middle, tall and rocky, and a cave hypnotically calling out to him.

The first few times he had that dream, Ben didn’t really think too much about it. But after a few months of seeing the same image for nights on end, some part of him started to obsess about its meaning. He was almost sure that it was a Force vision. His readings hadn’t clarified much, but without any other explanation and knowing that the Force ran strong in his birth family, Ben convinced himself that the Force was giving him a quest.

If the weird happenings in his life had confined themselves to dreams, Ben might have had an easier time of it. Years had passed and Ben now ran a cargo shuttling service for Lando: an extra-legal service to be precise. Along with the repeated dream almost every night over the last few years, which Ben felt he had completely memorized, there were also sudden flashes of emotions that were definitely not his and visions of things, commonplace things that somehow felt important.

A ragdoll made to look like a Resistance pilot, an AT-AT walker, scratch marks on a metallic wall and dried flowers sitting in a tin cup. At times, he would feel a weariness that settled deep in his bones, other times a deep loneliness that he’d never experienced, but somehow understood, would envelop him.

Before long, the academic in him figured it out. He had a Force bond. Someone out there in the vastness of the galaxy was connected to him in the Force. And Ben would find them if it was the last thing he did.

He set out, stopping on each planet that had oceans and islands. Every time he did a supply run or a pickup for Lando, he would visit and cross nearby planets that fit the criteria off his list. For years, he’d searched for his bondmate in vain. And now, at almost twenty-eight standard years old, Ben had started to lose hope that he would ever find them.

This particular run’s destination wasn’t really inspiring his confidence. Jakku was a dustbowl, a wasteland dotted with downed Imperial cruisers and Star Destroyers from the famous battle almost thirty years ago. Nothing of any importance happened on Jakku after the battle.

Shaking his head in resignation, Ben lowered his ship down near a small town called Niima Outpost. Ben felt odd as he did so. Something was brewing in the Force. He could feel it in his bones; it was the calm before a storm. Something was going to happen and Ben needed to be ready for it.

Stepping out into the unforgiving sun, Ben’s already prickly senses started to work in overdrive. He’d come to Jakku to pick up some packages for Lando from a Crolute called Unkar Plutt. But First Order soldiers seemed to be hunting something in the town too. It wouldn’t do for Ben to get involved in any such skirmish. Ben knew he had to avoid being captured by the First Order and making it easier for them to get him to the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’, if they found who he really was.

Just as he walked toward the outpost, TIE fighters dropped out of the atmosphere and started to strafe the sand. All it took was a second to realize that they were shooting at two people running in his direction. Explosions followed their footsteps and before Ben knew what he was doing, he had signaled them to run to his ship and started the lift-off sequence. The second he knew they were onboard, the Grimtaash shot toward the atmosphere.

It took plenty of fancy flying to get the TIEs off their tail, but Ben was vaguely aware that one of the two people who had boarded his ship was a girl and that she was at his co-pilot controls, working with him so seamlessly that even in the middle of the nerve wracking chase, he needed a moment to gape at her. Her similarly awe-struck expression let him know that something other than the ordinary was at work. But with TIE fighters trying to fry them into space dust, right then probably wasn’t the best time to discuss how they felt about supernatural interventions. 

Once they had shaken the TIEs and jumped to lightspeed, Ben turned to the girl who smiled shyly at him before looking at her companion, or rather, companions. Ben hadn’t noticed earlier, but the girl was accompanied by a young man and a kinda-sorta familiar white and orange BB unit.

Finn was the other human, a Resistance fighter. The droid, BB-8, was the irritatingly overconfident flyboy Dameron’s droid, which also carried a map to the location of his to-be-avoided-at-all-costs Uncle Luke.

Groaning mentally at their story, Ben knew he needed to pick his next steps carefully if he wanted to get out of this whole mess alive and with his sanity intact. He decided to first take them to Maz Kanata and organize someone from the Resistance to come get them from there, while he made his way to the quickest space corridor near Takodana so he could disappear before either of his parents found him.

That decided, Ben finally turned to the girl, Rey. Her eyes were brightened with excitement and she was almost hopping around from foot to foot in what appeared to be a mixture of happiness, excitement, and anxiety. She’d apparently never been off of Jakku.

Slowly, in fits and starts, her story emerged: her parents leaving her on Jakku and promising to come back, how she’d waited for them for almost fifteen years now. How she thought now that maybe they weren’t coming back, and she needed to go out there and see as many worlds as she could so that if she recognized any of them, she could finally solve the mystery of where she belonged.

Though he was tempted to say she belonged with him, which frankly was crazy talk, even for him, Ben just nodded understandingly and offered her a job. She could co-pilot with him as long as she wanted and once she figured out what she wanted to do with her life, he could drop her off wherever she wanted. Rey’s answering smile was so bright that Ben decided then and there that he wanted to spend the rest of his days making her smile like that. If Rey had decided something along the same lines about the tall, handsome smuggler with a heart of gold, they would figure it out between themselves, eventually.

Despite Ben and Rey being unaware of their destiny as a dyad, the galaxy had already begun to feel the oncoming change. 


	3. AU 2 - Senator Ben and Reyna Palpatine

Senator Organa-Solo was deep in thought about a piece of upcoming legislation he’d spearheaded in the Galactic Senate. Sitting at his massive desk with his eyes turned toward the Chandrilan skyline, the young man was so involved in his contemplations that he almost overlooked the slight ripples in the Force. But as the energy shifted and pulsated around him as if welcoming a long lost lover, Benjamin Organa-Solo looked away from the vista to meet a set of wide, hazel eyes that seemed to sparkle with light from within, in direct contrast to the rest of the person whose face they graced.

Reyna Palpatine melted out of the shadows to perch on one of the plush chairs littered around his office with a Loth wolf’s sleek, deadly grace . Clad in her signature layers of black with her dark hair in a high braid, the Sith princess looked every inch like Dark Side royalty. Her lips twisted in a smirk as she looked him up and down, as if contemplating just how much fun she was going to have taking him down.

While Benjamin and Reyna might have only met each other in person twice, they shared a unique connection in the Force that served to make them known to each other as only soulmates could. On opposite sides of a Galactic war that had already spanned decades and involved generations of both their families, it was safe to say that neither had made any attempt to disclose their connection to another soul.

While the Force connected and allowed them to interact almost every day cycle, attempting to meet in person was a venture fraught with near impossibilities. They’d learned that as younglings. Seeing her now and knowing that she was physically present in his office, not just a Force connection, made the young senator’s heart swell with his feelings. It also made him frown in worry. Nothing but the direst of circumstances would cause Rey to come to him without any warning or prior planning.

The Sith princess might strike fear into hearts across the galaxy, but Benjamin only knew her as Rey, his counterpart in the Force who had always struggled with the mantle thrust upon her slim shoulders, just as he did with his burdens. Growing up surrounded by adults who only saw them as a way to further their own legacy, the two children automatically leaned on the only other person who could understand their unique situation. Now, after years of communicating through the Force, after years of growing as close to one another as possible, their connection had grown so strong as to let one feel the other’s emotions across the galaxy, to let one slip into the other’s thoughts and memories as if they were their own.

Words were superfluous and the pair appreciated the opportunity to communicate without the traditional means. With so many Force sensitives nearby, heavily involved in their lives and invested in their own desired outcomes for the war, neither Ben nor Rey trusted others, even their families, enough.

With just a glance, Ben was able to discern that while Reyna looked as if everything was normal, or as normal as things could be for a Sith princess, agitation spiked around her. Her normally calm aura was murky and tempestuous, attempting to hide what lay beneath. It was something Ben had never expected to see in Rey. Something which he hadn’t known she was capable of -- fear.

“Rey, you’re really here? Something big has happened.”

In an instant, her slightly husky tone echoed in his mind. Benjamin heard hesitation, something he’d never heard before in their myriad interactions. 

While her tone may have held hesitation, her words were straight to the point.

“The Emperor sent me to kill you.”

Princess Reyna Palpatine had been many different people in her lifetime. A princess to her people, a pawn in her grandfather’s galactic Dejarik game, a Sith to the uninformed, and a nightmare to the idiotic few who stood in her way.

But there had always been one to whom she’d been nothing more or less than herself. Benjamin Organa-Solo – for all his famous family and legacy, had been a lonely and morose child of nine when she’d been born. During one of their numerous Force connections, Ben told her that the moment she’d come into being, he felt it from all the way across the galaxy, and he’d finally felt complete.

Throughout her childhood, Rey tried to understand what role he played in her life. Friends seemed too trivial for the relationship they shared, and considering him a brother felt very wrong in her mind. Even though he was a full decade older than Rey, Ben always felt like a part of her.

She knew that the connection between them was special enough to hide from everyone else, especially her grandfather. That the Force itself was helping her shield her thoughts and their connection from the Emperor removed any doubts from their minds. None of the Force sensitives around them had ever been able to detect, much less affect, their connection, and Ben and Rey had quickly become the most stable fixtures in each other’s lives.

Rey’s utter belief in Ben helped him tremendously during his emotionally unstable teenage years, and Ben’s devotion to her helped Rey find her inner strength and learn to value herself. The Force bound them together in a way that was stronger than the strongest powers in the universe. They were, for all intents and purposes, a single Force wielding soul split into two bodies.

Ben and Rey rose as one and made their way to an access panel hidden in his office wall without even a second thought after her blunt pronouncement. A small, secret chamber opened after a tiny access droid assessed both their biometrics, holding something extremely crucial to their plans.

Even though Reyna was his grandchild, she could count on one hand the number of times she’d been in her grandfather’s physical presence. The entire Empire knew that Palpatine had confined himself to Exegol and had multiple cloning labs working on backup bodies to sustain his life force on the mortal plane. But actually finding Exegol and getting there was the main challenge.

In all his supernaturally long life, the Emperor trusted none but Vader with some of his multitude of secrets. And it was just one of those precious secrets, wielded by Vader’s grandson and his own grand-daughter, which would lead to the Emperor’s downfall. Inside the tiny secret chamber was a wayfinder that the Emperor himself entrusted to Vader, an artifact for which Benjamin and Reyna extensively searched. In what was only their second meeting, they fought their way through Mustafar’s lava fields to obtain said artifact from Vader’s castle. The wayfinder would lead them to Exegol and Palpatine.

In all their exhaustive planning, neither had any idea what would happen afterwards. Getting planet side and finding the Emperor, along with his clones, was the first goal. The rest would be up to their lightsabers and the Force.

With the wayfinder patched into the Grimtaash’s navigational systems, Ben quickly tapped out a short message to his mother’s personal frequency informing her that he would be incommunicado for the near future. He and Rey had prepared for almost every eventuality; steps were in place in case either or both of them didn’t return from Exegol and their confrontation with Palpatine. The galaxy’s future was dependent on their success. Armed with nothing but courage and their lightsabers, Ben and Rey were ready to face their date with destiny.

The Force had made them a dyad and given them the power to affect change in ways no others could. Benjamin Organa-Solo and Reyna Palpatine were ready for the event they had been working towards their whole lives. They were individually extremely strong in the Force but together, they were inevitable. Today, the galaxy would watch in awe as a Force dyad like no other changed the fates of every single being in existence.

With Rey’s slim, strong fingers intertwined with Ben’s, her heart beating in time with his and their thoughts focused on their future, the Grimtaash went to lightspeed. 


	4. AU 3 - Smuggler Ben and Kira Ren

Kira Ren abruptly turned toward the officer who was giving her a report regarding the latest skirmish in which First Order stormtroopers had engaged, causing him to stutter and stop mid-word.

“What did you just say?”

Her velvety voice managed to sound threatening and calm at the same time. The young officer was shaking when he responded; her fingers danced in the air and an invisible hand constricted around his throat, lifting him up from the ground to let him dangle in mid-air while he choked out an answer.

Everyone knew that the best way to survive an interaction with the infamous Master of the Knights of Ren was to not have any interaction with her. This young officer had lost a bet and was forced to report to her. He was heartily regretting the entire endeavor now.

“We have... K-Kylo in custody, ma’am. Our stormtroopers were able to ambush him near Kef Bir. We-”

He would’ve continued, but Kira had already lost interest and tossed him to the floor like a ragdoll before striding out of the chamber, her cloak billowing after her like dark wings on a bird of prey. Or the dark feathers of a fallen angel.

Kira Ren was the tiniest of the Knights of Ren and the only one who didn’t wear a mask. Those who had seen her were first struck by her ethereal beauty: her alabaster skin, silky chestnut hair always in a high braid, bright hazel eyes sparking with energy and emotion in an elfin face with red pouty lips that many a man had seen in his dreams. Anyone who underestimated her based on her looks or stature soon felt the cauterizing heat of the twin blades of her saber staff.

Nonchalantly twirling her staff in one hand, she strode toward the cell block holding the infamous smuggler who called himself Kylo. No one told her where to find him; she hadn’t even needed to pull the information out of the poor officer’s mind. All she had to do was follow the Force’s will and it led her to him. Now that she knew the idiot was onboard, it was hard for Kira Ren to do anything but feel his irritatingly familiar Force signature smothering her like a warm blanket from all sides.

And all she’d asked from him was one thing: to stay away.

Walking into the interrogation cell and seeing his stupid smirk had her sorely tempted to just gut him with her ‘saber, her finger itching on the switch that triggered the blades. Her eyes spitting fire, Kira advanced on the much taller and much bigger prisoner with an expression that would’ve sent most grown men crying for their mothers. But strangely, even strapped to the interrogation table, this man was unafraid. In fact, at the sight of her rage, his smirk only grew wider.

“There you are, my love. And here I thought I would have to wait much longer to see your beautiful face.”

Kylo, also known to a select few as Benjamin Organa-Solo, was a man with a death wish. He had to be, to be so cavalierly caught by the First Order, solely to meet with the woman who haunted his dreams and waking moments. That they just happened to be on opposite sides of a galaxy-wide war didn’t really play an important role in any of his harebrained schemes.

When Kira spoke, her voice showed little trace of the anger still present in her eyes. Her low, husky voice dripped with disdain mixed with a hint of menace.

“It might be the last thing you ever see, Solo.”

If her tone or her words affected him, Ben didn’t show it. A split second later he was countering with a smile. 

“But what a way to go! I would be honored to be slain by such capable hands, my Lady.”

“Shut it, you nerfherder, or I’ll run you through with my staff. Do you have an ounce of self-control in that tiny brain of yours? All I asked from you was for you to stay away. And you show up here the first opportunity you get. Has your brain melted out of your ears from all the Corellian whiskey?”

Ben knew he should keep his mouth shut if he wanted to live through the day. But he couldn’t help himself; he was so far gone for this goddess raging in front of him that his instincts for self-preservation had disappeared.

To everyone else, Kira Ren was the ultimate ice queen, with her demeanor colder than Hoth. It was nigh on impossible to elicit anger from the young Master of the Knights of Ren, yet here she was, pacing and ranting, her temper as hot as the lava flows on Mustafar.

“Aww... You do care. It warms every corner of my poor, broken heart that you would worry so much about my safety, my Lady. But not to worry, I just dropped in to see your lovely face and let you know that I will be on your tail during your trip to Exegol. It is time.”

Stopping her pacing mid-stride, Kira’s expression tightened slightly before her features blanked out deliberately. She stepped closer to the interrogation table and tilted her head slightly. 

“And you couldn’t let me know this through the bond?” she asked.

Ben shrugged nonchalantly, his tight shirt struggling to stretch with his shoulders, making Kira’s eyes wander for a millisecond. The smuggler caught it, and his expression turned to one of a Tooka cat that had just licked up the entire bowl of cream.

“I could, but then I couldn’t do this.”

And he leaned forward, his arms wrapping around Kira’s slim waist as his plush lips fastened themselves to hers. The kiss lasted but a few seconds before Ben set her back on the floor and stepped away from the interrogation table himself. That his restraints were never fastened was something that hadn’t even registered on Kira’s radar, given how angry she’d been when walking in. But now, that was her last concern as she pulled him back down to her and kissed him once more, bruisingly hard, before she pushed him away.

“Be careful. If you lose me, get out. I don’t want to be distracted by you during whatever is going to happen on Exegol. And remember, no heroics. You get between me and the old man, and I will cut you down myself before I take his head off.”

Ben’s eyes softened for a bit, his fingers caressing Kira’s smooth cheek for a second before he nodded.

“You take care of yourself too. We’re going to finish this tonight, my love. I’ll be right next to you through all of it. Tomorrow we’ll celebrate the end of the old Empire and the beginning of the rest of our lives. Tomorrow, I’ll ask you to marry me. And tomorrow, you’ll say yes.”

Kira Ren’s eyes filled with traitorous tears as she just nodded her head at this crazy, brave, good man: the man who was her chaotic other half, the man she loved. The man who would be her fiancé come tomorrow. She couldn’t wait.

They had a date with destiny tonight, and Kira Ren intended to do whatever it took to make sure she and her smuggler saw the light of tomorrow, shining bright.


	5. AU 4 - Senator Ben and Rey

Senator Benjamin Organa-Solo of Chandrila was sulking. Of course, he had the manners and discipline to not do so when in company, but now that he was alone on the Grimtaash, the sulk was truly on.

He couldn’t understand why his mother insisted on him making the trek to these Force-forsaken Outer Rim territories every year to meet the old man. Han Solo wasn’t making any effort, and Leia herself hadn’t seen her so-called ‘husband’ in years either. But for some utterly infuriating reason, she insisted on a pact they decided upon almost twelve standard years ago. Every year, Ben would make his way to the outer rim to meet with his ‘Father’ and spend one standard week with him and his walking carpet of a partner, catching up.

He’d managed to avoid this dreaded trip for the past few years because of Han’s inability to plan and inconsistency in wanting to be a parent, but somehow, this year things had worked out and the old man had agreed to meet. And that was why Benjamin All-Those-Names was enjoying such an almighty sulk.

His ship had just pulled out of light speed above Jakku’s atmosphere, the dustbowl of the galaxy, when off to the horizon, he spotted a small skirmish between a light Corellian freighter and three First Order TIEs. A very familiar cargo freighter: a YT- 1300 model that looked to have achieved its true state of a floating junk heap.

Seeing the ship that had featured in so much of his childhood, the ship that he’d dreamed of one day piloting when he was a youngling, Ben understood why Han had asked to meet in this area. The old man must’ve finally figured out where his junk heap had gone and decided to use their father-son trip to find it and run some game on someone with it. Typical Han, always looking out for himself.

Even as Ben watched, the Falcon swooped and dropped into a series of complicated maneuvers trying to evade the TIE fighters. The flying, if nothing else, had him convinced that the crazy person piloting the Falcon had to be his father. But if Han was flying the Falcon, he surely had Uncle Chewie with him, so why weren’t the TIEs evaporating into space dust yet? Ben watched carefully and found what seemed to be a malfunction with the gun turret. It was stuck in forward position. Of course, even after years of bleaching in the Jakku sun, the junk heap would try to kill its pilot every chance it got.

Shaking his head in resignation at his father's typical behavior, Ben maneuvered until the three errant TIE fighters were in sight and within a couple of seconds, they were space debris. Gritting his teeth to get it over with, he opened the Falcon’s comm channel, using the family frequency codes to bypass the need to hail the ship and gain permission to communicate.

“How is this junk heap still space worthy?”

If he’d been hoping to hear Han Solo’s gruff tones or Chewbacca’s familiar growls and trills, he was disappointed and intrigued at the same time to hear a young woman speaking.

“I have no idea, but if you’re the one who shot those TIEs, thank you! That was some great shooting.”

Ben felt something unfurl in him at hearing that voice. It was like an echo in his soul, some part of him clicked open. It was like being in the sun after a long period of darkness and the voice, with its hint of an Inner Rim accent, had his mind trying to construct a vision of what the speaker might look like.

While his mind was contemplating some poetic turn of phrase, his mouth apparently hadn’t gotten the memo.

“And who are you? What are you doing with this ship?”

“Rude much? You could at least acknowledge what I said. But we found this ship on Jakku and needed it to escape the fighters you blew up. Who are you?”

“I don’t need to tell you who I am. But I do need to let you know that ship is mine.”

“Is it? And how exactly is it that you came to find it just now? This ship has been on Jakku for years, no one came for it and now, you just show up and claim it is yours?”

There was a liberal amount of scorn in her voice that translated even through the crackly comms.

“I could prove it to you. But first, are you piloting alone? Do you have anyone onboard with you?”

“Why should I tell you? I don’t know who you are and I don’t know what your interest was in blowing up those fighters. Thank you for that, but we’ll be going on our way now.”

“So it is a ‘we’ then. You’ll be going nowhere, because that ship is mine.”

There was forced patience in her voice when she replied.

“You keep saying that, but you offer no proof.”

With a sense of enjoyment that he hadn’t felt in a while, Ben grinned before answering, like he knew the correct answer to the million credit question on some galactic game show.

“There’s a pair of aurodium plated golden dice hanging above your head. They have symbols that are used in a Corellian version of Sabacc. I know they’re there because they belong to my father, just like the ship. And in turn, they both belong to me.”

There was a long silence following Ben’s words.

‘Uh… the dice are there. Just like you said. I believe you about the ship. Do you want us to... leave?”

The sudden change in her tone made Ben feel sad for some reason, and of course, he couldn’t let this girl who had single handedly piloted the Falcon in such a glorious manner leave without meeting her first. Maybe Han would like to meet her as well, if he ever made it.

“Actually, I would like to come onboard and meet this ‘us,’ if you don’t mind.”

“And how do you propose to do that?”

“There’s a special docking bay specifically made for my ship. If you can follow my instructions to extend the bay, I can dock my ship.” 

At her affirmative noise, Ben explained the steps to extend the docking bay on the Falcon. In a few minutes, the Grimtaash was docked successfully and Ben made his way through the bay doors into the ship that he fondly referred to as a junk heap. His first view of the insides proved that time had definitely not been kind to the freighter. Everything looked dirtier and older, on the verge of falling into disrepair. His mother’s words about the Falcon being held together by sheer force of will seemed more true than ever now.

That was all Ben could think about before he found himself facing the business end of a blaster. Holding the blaster was a man trying and failing to look threatening accompanied by a girl dressed in sand colored clothes. Ben’s eyes skipped over the man, deciding that he wasn’t an obvious threat considering the blaster’s safety was still on. The sight of the girl -- no, woman -- behind him had Ben struggling to draw a lungful of air. She too seemed to be having a similar problem and before either of them could react, Ben was assaulted by flashes of a vision. The Force had brought them together and they were being shown why.

_ Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber, the one thought to be lost, in her hand, emitting what looked to be a silvery white beam instead of its famous blue. _

_ A deep purple crossguard saber in his. _

_ The two of them back to back, against red clad sentinels. _

_ The thing that called itself the Supreme Leader of the First Order, lying dead near its throne with its body hewn in two as if cut through with a lightsaber. _

_ The Knights of Ren on a battlefield. _

_ Lightning. _

_ And a chill-inducing voice he unfortunately knew very well saying “At last, my child,” followed by evil laughter. _

When the visions passed, Ben blinked back into the present and found that not even a couple of seconds had passed. Deciding on a whim to not delve into this development at the moment, he was saved from any further contemplations by a familiar orange and white BB unit rolling on to the scene. Ben glanced at the young woman and was thankful when she too appeared to not want to discuss what he was sure she’d seen too.

“BB-8! What are you doing here? Is Dameron here too?”

He had to step back when his ears were assaulted by three separate voices yelling out questions together

BB’s plaintive beeps about Poe’s situation penetrated the jumble of words the fastest. Ben could only stiffen in shock at the knowledge.

“You know this BB unit?”

“You know Poe Dameron?”

Making his way to the droid, Ben crouched down and rubbed the little one’s rounded head, straightening an antenna that tended to become crooked while murmuring his sympathies. Without turning, he answered both questions.

“I do know the droid. BB-8 belongs to an old friend of the family, Poe Dameron. We grew up together.”

At that, something passed between the two who had questioned him, making Ben confused. The girl seemed to distance herself from the young man, who now looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there.

“What happened? What did I say?”

The girl’s eyes turned flinty as she looked the other man up and down before turning to Ben.

“This guy found me on Jakku and told me he was working for the Resistance. Said he worked with Poe Dameron. Now you say you know this Dameron, but you don’t seem to recognize this guy. The droid knows you, but I found it with him. I don’t know who or what to believe.”

Ben turned back to BB-8, whose rapid fire beeping in response only seemed to be understood by Ben and the girl. The young man was looking at all three of them in turn, trying to figure out what was being said.

“BB here says that you were escaping from the First Order when Poe found you. Says you helped Poe escape but you both crash landed on Jakku and Poe… he…”

“He didn’t make it.”

Those were the first words the young man had spoken since Ben had come onboard the Falcon. His voice sounded genuinely distressed, and he looked like he was barely holding it together.

Before Ben or the girl could say anything, the Falcon’s controls started beeping, and Ben found himself and the young woman responding to it in unison, dancing around each other flawlessly, as if they had been doing the same for years. Hitting the beeping comm signal, Ben was simultaneously gratified and irritated to hear his father’s gruff and carefree tones. 

“Ben! Is that you?”

At his affirmative grunt, Han continued.

“You found her, huh… You found the Falcon after all these years. Where was she? Hold on, Chewie and I will come onboard and we’ll talk. We’re having some… let’s say logistical issues here at the moment.”

Without giving Ben any time to respond, the comm cut off and Han was gone.

Trying to control his irritation, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, but felt his temper dull much quicker than anticipated. A strange calm was spreading over him, something not of his own doing. Ben’s eyes widened as he turned to look at the girl. Rey. Somehow, without her saying it, he knew it. He knew her. He also knew that she’d just tried to calm him down through the Force. For someone who had no training in the Force, someone who probably didn’t even know what the Force was, Rey was exhibiting a startling amount of innate talent in its manipulation.

He could see a sort of awakening in her eyes too, as if she’d been living in the shadow for far too long and was finally able to come into the sunlight. Without even making an effort, he was able to reach her through the Force, something that used to be hard work even with his mother and uncle, and to his astonishment, she reached back to him with the same ease.

An unspoken understanding passed between them to set this revelation aside for the moment and figure it all out later. But even as he turned to the docking bay to meet his father and honorary uncle for the first time in years, Benjamin Organa-Solo knew one thing for sure. Life with Rey was going to be very exciting. They had a destiny and they would do everything possible to fulfill it. And he wasn’t even a little surprised to feel a rising excitement from Rey as she turned to catch his eye and grinned wide, her dimples showing, her face glowing from within, like a small sun. His own little ball of fire.


	6. AU 5 - Kylo Ren and Kira Palpatine

Kylo Ren’s impassive black mask stared out into the void of space as one of General Hux’s minions gave a report on the First Order’s most recent skirmish with the tiresome Resistance. The inky blackness outside his viewport served to calm down an otherwise raging inferno inside his mind. The Supreme Leader hadn’t been remotely kind in his routine meander through his apprentice’s thoughts and emotions, taking care to inflict as much damage as he could, leaving Kylo’s nerves shredded and his temper sparking.

Of course, his master finding out about Kylo’s little side project with the Sith Wayfinder hadn’t endeared him to Snoke. Instead, he had seemed almost gleeful as he recklessly raked through Kylo’s mind, taking pleasure in causing as much pain as he could, searching for details of the little expedition to Mustafar.

More than his mind being split open for his master’s amusement, it was Snoke’s next words that sent a chill down Kylo’s spine. But it was also something Kylo was expecting after setting things rolling with his trip to Mustafar.

‘Hmmm… it might finally be time for Vader’s blood to fulfill his destiny. Use that little artifact you found. Come, find me, young Solo. Let us see just how worthy your Skywalker blood really is.”

It was time indeed; time for the old guard to die and the new leadership to take their place. Time for the stranglehold the Emperor had on the galaxy to end. But Kylo was careful to keep these particular thoughts confined to a small and undetectably protected area of his mind. It wouldn’t do for either the Emperor or his clone Snoke to figure out what had been going on right under their decrepit noses for so long, just when Kylo and his partner were about to achieve what they’d spent so many years working toward.

With a curt nod of dismissal to the officer who had stopped mid-word when Kylo turned, he strode out of the Intimidator’s bridge without a glance at Hux. Snoke’s discovery of his trip to Mustafar had set things moving far earlier than he or his partner intended. It would not do to waste any more time playing war games. Also, with Kylo straying from Snoke’s stranglehold, his older Master and Imperial clone would automatically lean toward his military general. And Snoke couldn’t be given the opportunity to find one more little secret.

Hux followed him without a word. Once the two commanders were in sight of Kylo’s TIE Silencer, the two men shared an odd glance of camaraderie and the General nodded slightly before making his way past Kylo back into the star destroyer. In that one glance, the two young men had traded encouragement without anyone being the wiser.

“Finish this tonight. Tomorrow we rule”

Visible to no one, Kylo had picked up on Hux’s thought and nodded back his own reply before he boarded his Silencer and blasted off to Exegol with the Sith wayfinder.

To the rest of the galaxy, Kylo Ren and Armitage Hux were Snoke’s hounds, straining at their leashes trying to one up each other. To the First Order, they were two commanders that hated each other’s guts but worked together grudgingly because of the Supreme Leader’s orders.

Only Kylo and his partner knew the truth of his relationship with Hux. They first met under Snoke’s watchful eyes almost half a dozen years previously, and seemed to hate each other on sight. It was something Snoke anticipated, and he used one to aggravate the other. Snoke thought he kept them both motivated to outdo the other by denigrating them every time they failed to follow his orders to the last detail.

But in reality, coming from broken homes with parents that either hated them or couldn’t be bothered to care for them bonded the two young men in a way neither Snoke nor the Emperor could have foreseen. 

While Hux had been and still some times was uncomfortable with Kylo wielding the Force, something Hux could neither see nor control, years of interactions had slowly but surely built at least a grudging trust if not comfort in the Force user. Even now, Hux wasn’t happy to be working with Force users but knew that Kylo was essential in their plans to take over control of the Empire and run the galaxy the way it should.

With the addition of Kira Palpatine, Kylo’s partner and dyad in the Force, the old Empire’s days were numbered. The three of them planned exhaustively for years together. This was the only goal they had worked towards, all while keeping up the façade of following their masters’ vision for the galaxy. It all came down to this day.

Once on Exegol, Kylo quickly made his way through the Sith temple, feeling the Force guide him toward where he knew he would find the Emperor. Making his way through legions of Sith acolytes, Kylo entered what looked like an arena. Even having seen Palpatine in Kira’s thoughts didn’t prepare him for the grotesque vision with which he was faced.

The ancient Emperor sat on a Sith throne like a decrepit spider, waiting to suck out an unsuspecting victim’s life force. Kylo knew Snoke sent him here to be Palpatine’s next victim, to extend his life on the mortal plane, but neither the Emperor nor his clone could know exactly the fate that awaited them.

Kylo could feel it in the Force; it felt like the deep breath before the plunge. The Force was done arranging all the pieces on the board. It was now time for the two knights to fulfill their destiny.

“At last, my boy. I have been waiting far too long for this. Kira, my dear grandchild, come. Face the contender for my throne. Cast him down and you shall be the only Force user strong enough to take my throne and your birthright as the Empress.”

Kira Palpatine walked out to the middle of the arena as if having melted out of the shadows. Her face was shrouded with a hood and her cloak swished behind her, but her eyes stared straight ahead at the man who claimed to be her grandfather. Her hand already held her saberstaff at the ready.

Facing each other, Kylo and Kira looked like two apex predators sizing each other up, but in reality, it was two soulmates who were meeting each other in person for the first time in a very long time. Even though Rey and Kylo interacted through their Force bond every single day, this was only the third time they were physically in each other’s company.

The Force had brought them together when neither had anyone else in their lives they trusted. Both were legacy children, both lonely and both extremely powerful in the Force. There was no chance of a close bond not developing. Throughout their lives, they had circled around a common center, planning and training for this particular day. And throughout their lives, they’d fallen deeper and deeper into the connection until now, neither knew where one ended and the other began.

Their bodies and their speech said differently, but their eyes spoke the truth. The Force sang around them, tendrils of energy braiding and reinforcing itself around them till a halo almost formed around the two. The gold and silver sparks of energy arcing between them was a sight no Force user had seen or heard in the galaxy’s history.

The sight of the Force dancing at their beck and call should’ve put the old Emperor on his guard, but the decrepit one had grown too complacent in his power and his ability to control the universe around him. Two red lightsabers glowed in the arena, bathing the area with an eerie light as the two knights turned as one to face their common enemy.


	7. Modern AU - When it all came together

Ben Solo’s harsh pants echoed through the room as he lay on his bed, completely soaked with sweat, his eyes staring wildly into the night.

It was the same dream. The same images flashing, cycling endlessly through his mind.

Him and a girl, a young woman, in very different clothing, running around in a desert, on some ship in the middle of pouring rain, in corridors of what looked like a spaceship. They carried weapons that looked like guns, but shot laser rays. They had laser swords. Red and blue. He couldn’t get those images out of his head. No matter what he’d tried, even if he closed his eyes now, he would be able to see the young woman’s face, bathed in golden firelight. Her wide hazel eyes shimmering with tears as she extended a hand to him.

“You’re not alone.”

“Neither are you.”

But the reality was, he was alone. He always had been. Benjamin Organa-Solo, the man with as many names as problems, was the son of two Hollywood legends. His grandparents had been a small time actor who had risen to become a studio owner and a princess respectively. And his life had been an unmitigated disaster from day one.

Coming into the world, he’d almost killed his mother. With his intense emotions and antisocial nature, he’d caused his parents to split up and in the process leave him with no parental authority except a crazy uncle who’d tried to kill him once. There were documentaries made about his family and unfortunately, when he was a teenager, he’d found out about his grandfather’s big scandal from one such illuminating film. Anakin Skywalker had been vilified as a war sympathizer and profiteer, using his influence in Hollywood to finance and support laws and appointments that benefited the country’s war machine.

Fifteen year old Ben Solo discovered this when a disgruntled classmate flung the documentary name in his face after a particularly caustic argument about something he couldn’t even remember now.

Knowing that his family had kept him in the dark, while routinely claiming that Ben’s intense emotions and his anti-social behavior reminded them of Anakin, had been the straw that broke the camel’s back. Ben had left the house that night and not been back. All communications between Ben and his parents ceased for almost a decade.

In those ten years Benjamin Organa-Solo died so Kylo Ren could live and take the world by storm. It served to his advantage that he looked so different from both his famous parents. Even the hungriest of the media sharks had never made the connection between gangly fifteen year old Ben Solo with acne and Dumbo ears to the hotshot actor Kylo Ren who had taken the world by storm with his intense portrayal of the dark and conflicted anti-hero character in the latest Stellar Battles series of movies. Even before the first movie in the franchise’s release, the buzz generated by his character was enough to land him four more interesting roles and Ben never looked back. Now, with close to a decade in the industry, a dozen awards and critical acclaim under his belt, Ben somehow still found himself unsatisfied. Something still felt hollow inside, as if he was but half a person living half a life.

And there were the dreams. They didn’t always come and even when they did, they weren’t always the same. But they were always about the same two people – him and this young woman. He knew in his gut that he’d never met her, didn’t know who she was. But in his dreams, he did. She was his other half and in every scenario that played out in those dreams, it was always the two of them.

Sometimes they were together, sometimes apart. Sometimes enemies, sometimes friends, and in a few, one of them had to kill the other. But in each and every one of his dreams, the young woman featured a starring role. Her chestnut curls, big, sparkly hazel eyes, pert nose and sunshine smile, her lean lines and hidden strength, her generous heart and her iron will were all etched in his heart and mind. This woman he’d never met had taken over his sleeping and waking moments.

He tried to analyze whatever he remembered of the dreams to figure out what they meant or if he could find some clues to see when or where he might’ve met her, to try and get some context. In the dreams, the scenarios changed, their relationship changed and they themselves changed, but there were no clues that Ben could use to figure anything out. No real world locations, no real world costumes and definitely no real world weaponry. It was as if Ben Solo was writing his own science fiction series in his head while asleep. But something, a gut feeling of sorts, warned him not to dismiss anything out of hand.

After multiple sleepless nights when he’d obsessed about this girl from his dreams and the frankly disturbing visions he’d experienced, he’d confessed to a confused agent and an irate manager.

His manager, Gwen Phasma, was an Amazon of a woman whose no nonsense attitude ran Ben’s life like clockwork. Her frosty, disdainful stare was renowned in the industry for being uber effective against overenthusiastic fans and press alike. It was less common knowledge that Gwen was happily married to the gorgeous supermodel Bazine Netal. They both liked their privacy and figured that anyone who was important to them already knew.

Armitage Hux, his agent, had been Ben’s closest friend since they both could remember. The snarky redhead knew and understood Ben like no one else, and he’d been with him since the beginning. It had been Hux who’d introduced Phasma to Ben and the rest was history. Hux had met his fiancé Rose, a special effects engineer, on the set of Stellar Battles a few years back, and promptly fallen head over heels for her. It had taken him a while to convince the bubbly, young Asian woman to give him a chance, but Hux had persevered and was now happily planning their upcoming wedding with her.

With his closest friends happily in relationships, Ben found the loneliness getting to him. In an effort to rid himself of the growing worry that he would just disappear one day and nobody would miss him, he found himself unloading his weird sci-fi romance story in front of the four people he trusted. The three ladies seemed enraptured by the story, while Hux was staring blankly at him, wondering when his best friend had fallen on his head and lost his mind. Alcohol was consumed in massive amounts that night and a lot of theories were put forth, each more outlandish than the other and while no concrete change was effected, Ben felt a whole lot lighter after having shared his burden with his friends.

One thing that did change was that the ladies had convinced him that his soulmate, the woman from his dreams, was real, did exist and that he should look for her instead of just wallowing in his misery. Previously whenever he left the house in his hat and sunglasses ‘disguise,’ all his attention and efforts would go into making sure nobody followed him or figured out who he was. But now, in addition to protecting himself, Ben was also on the lookout for his girl.

He’d tried every avenue at his disposal short of asking a family friend of his who worked in law enforcement to put out a BOLO(Be On the LookOut) for her. But after months of keeping up his hopes just for them to be crushed again and again, Ben was ready to give up and go back to being the mopey, sad, single fifth wheel in their group.

Which was why, when he walked out of the London Airport one fine day and found her waiting in Arrivals, Benjamin Organa-Solo promptly dropped his carry-on and just wrapped his arms around her.

Rey didn’t know what had prompted her to come all the way to the airport. She’d just woken up and in some sort of a mental fog and decided she just needed to be at the airport. Now, standing at international arrivals, Rey felt like a fool, waiting for someone who was definitely not coming.

That was the story of her life. She was always waiting, waiting for people who were never coming in the first place or never coming back.

Her parents, her foster parents, her first friend, a dozen friends after that and worst of all, the man who starred in her dreams, every single night.

She’d had these dreams for as long as she could remember. She’d known Kylo Ren even before he’d ever acted in a movie. But seeing his face on a fifteen feet tall movie poster had certainly been a shock. She’s seen all the Stellar Battles movies, but only because she’d been a fan of the franchise even before Kylo became a part of it.

An orphan who’d aged out of the system, Rey Johnson had few people she liked enough to let them get close to her. Finn and Poe had wormed their way into her affections when she hadn’t been looking and now refused to leave. They called themselves her brothers and irritated the heck out of her, but it was fond exasperation most of the time. She wouldn’t admit it even under torture but Finn and Poe had become very important parts of her life in the few short years she’d known them. 

Finn and Rey were both in their last year of Architecture and Sociology studies Master's programs, respectively. They’d met during first year at a random campus mixer and never looked back. Poe had come as a package deal with Finn, the two of them disgustingly cute even after having been together for a long time. 

Rey was studying to become a social worker so that she could help as many children like her face the system and the world with their best foot forward. She wanted to give them the opportunities that she and many kids like her never had.

Rey’s unstable childhood meant that she almost never felt safe. Whether it was food, money, things, or people, Rey was always tempted to hoard and hide everything from anyone who could take them from her. Even now, after years of having enough food, money, a job and a place to comfortably live, Rey’s insecurities still managed to get the better of her when she was down.

She’d tried to act normally, tried to be normal, but her eccentricities had always shown through. Most of her relationships had ended because the men always thought she was too weird. There was also the fact that she had always mentally compared her boyfriends with Ben, the man from her dreams, even before she’d known he was Kylo Ren. And Ben had always proved the better choice.

Even though Finn and Poe encouraged her to put herself out there and seize her own happy ending, to Rey, a stable job, a stable income, and a stable life were more important. Plus, she always had her Ben. He was with her just in her dreams, but with him she was safe, she was important and cherished, just as she was.

But none of this explained her sudden urge to go to the airport that day or why she was actually looking at the people coming out from the international arrivals section, as if expecting someone in particular to show up.

It didn’t explain the fact that he had walked out to precisely where she’d stood and dropping his carry-on, how he’d just dragged her into his arms as if she was his long lost love, whispering a name he couldn’t have known.

“Rey…”

Or the fact that she’d wrapped her arms around him in return, her body relaxing into his hold as if she’d finally come home after a long and arduous journey, whispering his real name in return; a name that so few people associated with him that even with her included, they could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

‘“Ben.”

“You’re not alone.”

“Neither are you.”

The picture that Ben sent to his friends didn’t break the Internet, but it did break a glass vase that Bazine had been filling with water for some flowers from her lovely wife when she dropped it in shock at hearing said wife squeal very loudly from the living room. Vase forgotten, Bazine rushed to find a very giddy Gwen hopping around the room, doing some sort of weird victory dance, her phone held in her hand like a prize. Of course, if the picture and the following message elicited a similar reaction from the usually sophisticated model, none but her equally happy wife was witness to it.

At Rose and Hux’s apartment, an almost eerily similar incident occurred, this time involving a very expensive wine bottle that Armitage vowed to himself he would make his friend pay for. Rose had already started to mentally design the special effects and fireworks display she wanted to put on at Ben and Rey’s wedding.

Her vision came to fruition within the year when all of Hollywood learned about it the week after the very hush-hush wedding with the super exclusive guest list not even a dozen people long. By then, a very tan Rey was being chased across a private beach by a sunburnt but very happy Ben, their laughter echoing as the universe smiled.

Everything was finally as it should be.


End file.
